Case on Developing Misssion, Vision, Values

Case in Point: Xerox Motivates Employees for Success

As of 2010, Xerox Corporation (NYSE: XRX) is a $22 billion, multinational company
founded in 1906 and operating in 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk,
Connecticut, and employs 130,000 people. How does a company of such size and
magnitude effectively manage and motivate employees from diverse backgrounds and
experiences? Such companies depend on the productivity and performance of their
employees.
The journey over the last 100 years has withstood many successes and failures. In
2000, Xerox was facing
bankruptcy after years of mismanagement, piles of debt, and mounting questions about
its accounting practices.

Anne Mulcahy turned Xerox around. Mulcahy joined Xerox as an employee in 1976 and
moved up the corporate ladder, holding several management positions until she
became CEO in 2001. In 2005, Mulcahy was named by Fortune magazine as the
second most powerful woman in business. Based on a lifetime of experience with
Xerox, she knew that the company had powerful employees who were not motivated
when she took over. Mulcahy believed that among other key businesses changes,
motivating employees at Xerox was a key way to pull the company back from the brink
of failure. One of her guiding principles was a belief that in order to achieve customer
satisfaction, employees must be treated as key stakeholders and become interested
and motivated in their work. Mulcahy not only successfully saw the company through
this difficult time but also was able to create a stronger and more focused company.

In 2009, Mulcahy became the chairman of Xerox’s board of directors and passed the
torch to Ursula Burns, who became the new CEO of Xerox. Burns became not only the
first African American woman CEO to head a Standard & Poor’s (S&P) company but
also the first woman to succeed another woman as the head of an S&P 100 company.
Burns is also a lifetime Xerox employee who has been with the company for over 30
years. She began as a graduate intern and was hired full time after graduation. Because
of her tenure with Xerox, she has close relationships with many of the employees, which
provides a level of comfort and teamwork. She describes Xerox as a nice family. She
maintains that Mulcahy created a strong and successful business but encouraged
individuals to speak their mind, to not worry about hurting one another’s feelings, and to
be more critical.

Burns explains that she learned early on in her career, from her mentors at Xerox, the
importance of managing individuals in different ways and not intentionally intimidating
people but rather relating to them and their individual perspectives. As CEO, she wants
to encourage people to get things done, take risks, and not be afraid of those risks. She
motivates her teams by letting them know what her intentions and priorities are. The
correlation between a manager’s leadership style and the productivity and motivation of
employees is apparent at Xerox, where employees feel a sense of importance and a
part of the process necessary to maintain a successful and profitable business. In 2010,
Anne Mulcahy retired from her position on the board of directors to pursue new projects.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. In terms of the P-O-L-C framework, what values do the promotion and
retention of Mulcahy and Burns suggest are important at Xerox? How
might these values be reflected in its vision and mission statements?
2. How do you think Xerox was able to motivate its employees through the
crisis it faced in 2000?
3. How do CEOs with large numbers of employees communicate priorities
to a worldwide workforce?
4. How might Ursula Burns motivate employees to take calculated risks?
5. Both Anne Mulcahy and Ursula Burns were lifetime employees of Xerox.
How does an organization attract and keep individuals for such a long
period of time?

(Case written by [citation redacted per publisher request]. Based on information from Tompkins,
N. C. (1992, November 1). Employee satisfaction leads to customer service. AllBusiness.
Retrieved April 5, 2010, from http://www.allbusiness.com/marketing/market-research/341288-
1.html;)